By Chris Bartholomew
Ipswich, Suffolk, England.
Suffolk police linked five killings of area prostitutes and launched a murder investigation code-named Operation Sumac.
The 2006 killings led to one of the country's biggest ever manhunts and drew comparisons with Jack the Ripper.
Tania Nicol, 19, Gemma Adams, 25, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, also 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, were all drug addicts who were working as prostitutes when they were picked up and murdered. Their naked bodies were dumped around the town, two in a stream and the other three in woods, over a 10-day period in December 2006. Some of the victims were posed in the position of a crucifix.
The killer had many nicknames in the media: East Anglia Ripper, Ipswich Ripper, Red Light Ripper, Suffolk Ripper, Suffolk Strangler, Suffolkator, Vice Girl Killer.
In a press conference police warned all women to stay away from the red light district of Ipswich.
Detectives believe it is unlikely that one man could have carried the body of each victim through dense shrubs, in the dark, to the places they were found without the bodies being scratched or marked in any way. Two cars were also seen near the spot where Annette Nicholls' body was later found.
A forklift truck driver, Steve Gerald James Wright, then aged 48, was arrested on suspicion of murder on December 10th, 2006, and charged with the murders of all five women on the 21st of December.
His DNA was found on the bodies of three of the victims while bloodstains from two of the women were found on his jacket at his home, along with specks of blood in his car. The odds of the DNA matches occurring by chance are one in a billion.
A single black nylon fiber from the footwell of Wright's car was found in Nicol's hair, while microscopic fibers from his clothing, car and home were discovered on all five.
Wright was identified because his DNA had been added to the national database in 2003 on a conviction for theft while working as a hotel barman.
Closed-circuit television and number plate recognition technology had placed his car in the red light district at the time several of the women disappeared.
During the trial, one man was named as a possible accomplice, a supermarket worker and the first man to be arrested on suspicion of murdering the women. His involvement "cannot be ruled out", the jury was told.
This possible accomplice, 38, knew all of the victims and had slept with some of them. He was questioned four times then released on bail for six months before being eliminated from the investigation. There was no evidence he was involved in the murders.
He had been arrested a few hours after calling police and saying he was worried about having a split personality and wasn't sure if he was 'doing things which he didn't know about, and then going back to his normal personality.'
Both the prosecution and defense said the killer might have been assisted, raising the prospect that another serial killer remains on the loose.
There were several reasons for suspecting Wright did not act alone. A witness spotted victim Tania Nicol late on the night she disappeared speaking to the driver of a car which appeared to have two occupants. Also, Anneli Alderton's body appeared to have been carried to its final resting place by two people, as there was no evidence of it being dragged through the foliage.
Wright was found guilty of all five murders on February 21st, 2008. He was sentenced the following day to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he should never be paroled.
Over thirty onlookers shouted "scum" at the prison van as he was driven away from Ipswich Crown Court to Belmarsh Prison in south east London, where he would undergo routine psychiatric assessments and be placed on suicide watch. It is believed he will serve his sentence at a high-security prison, possibly Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, or Whitemoor, near March, Cambridgeshire. The jury took fewer than six hours to find Wright responsible for the murders.
The court heard that Wright picked up the women while they worked in the streets around his home before killing them while they were incapacitated by heavy doses of drugs. Despite Steve Wright's conviction, one question remains: did he have an accomplice? The other suspect was never charged.
People who knew Wright described him as a shy man, a golf fanatic, who sometimes played 36 holes a day, and was 'entirely ordinary.' As usually happens, after he was arrested, tried, and convicted, people started describing him differently. He often cleaned his car at night, yet his house was not clean. He said in court that he was compulsive at cleaning, trying to explain why he would be cleaning the car in the dark. Friends of he and his wife said they saw him several times try to strangle her in a sudden fit of rage right in front of them, the only thing saving her was someone breaking it up, and then he would be calm as if nothing had happened.
An examination of Wright's life reveals contempt for women that may stem from a lengthy separation from his mother, a dislike of his stepmother, two brief marriages and years of paying strangers for sex.
Gemma Adams
Gemma Adams aged 25, was last seen outside a BMW dealership on West End Road in Ipswich. She was reported missing the same day by her partner, Jon Simpson, with whom she had been for ten years.
She was the first of the victims to be found. Adams was found naked, in a brook, but had not been sexually assaulted.
She worked as a prostitute to cover the drug addiction, which had already cost her a job with an insurance firm. Her partner Simpson was aware she was working as a prostitute though her family was not.
Tania Nicol
Tania Nicol, aged 19, disappeared on 30 October and was reported missing by her mother 48 hours later. She was the first of the victims to be reported missing.
Her body was discovered on the 8th of December near Copdock Mill in a river by police divers; there was no evidence of sexual assault and a post mortem could not establish a definite cause of death.
Nicol, the youngest of the five victims, worked as a prostitute to fund her addiction to heroin and cocaine.
Annette Nicholls
Annette Nicholls, aged 29, was a mother of one; her family reported her missing after they grew concerned at the news of the other murders. Nicholls' body was found on 12 December near Levington, naked but not sexually assaulted, and posed in the crucifix position; a definite cause of death could not be established but her breathing had been hampered.
Anneli Alderton
Anneli Alderton, aged 24, was a mother of one child with another on the way. Alderton disappeared on 3 December and was last seen on a train. Alderton's body was found on 10 December near Nacton, in woodland in front of a school. Alderton had been asphyxiated and was found naked and also posed in the crucifix position. Her pregnancy was revealed by the autopsy and her family was first informed of it by police officers.
Paula Clennell
Paula Clennell, aged 24, was a mother of three children. She disappeared on 10 December. Clennell's body was found on 12 December near Levington on the same day as Nicholls'. Clennell was found naked but not sexually assaulted. She had been killed by a compression of her throat.
Prior to her death Clennell commented on the then recent murders in an interview, stating that despite them making her "a bit wary about getting into cars" she continued to work as "I need the money." A serial killer was on the loose but she insisted she had to continue working in order to pay for her fixes.
She told a TV interviewer: "It makes me sick to the stomach but if you need the money badly, it's better than going out thieving."
Afterwards, Paula walked back to the red light area. Less than 72 hours later she was dead.
More about Wright
Steve Wright taunted police by snatching victims right under their noses, and could have been in the process of murdering a sixth woman when she was saved by pure chance.
One prostitute narrowly escaped Wright's vice-like grip in his bedroom when his wife returned home unexpectedly. He had brazenly managed to select her from streets flooded with police and roadblocks in the wake of the five prostitutes going missing.
One prostitute said she went with Wright, even though she knew about the other girls, because he was a regular client, but then he 'turned nasty'.
Profilers and investigators used to dealing with serial killers are convinced that Wright started at an earlier age.
Other possible victims
Suzy Lamplugh, 25. Suzy disappeared in July 1986 while working as an estate agent in Fulham, West London, after going to see a client known as Mr. Kipper. Her body was never found. Wright's wife says she remembers the name 'kipper' and insists he used that as a name for 'face.' Miss Lamplugh met Steve Wright when they both worked together and they stayed in touch when Wright ran a pub in Brixton. Miss Lamplugh's father said after Wright's arrest that police had told him Wright was 'of interest' in connection with his daughter's disappearance.
Natalie Pearman, 16. She was a prostitute who went missing in 1992 from Norwich's red light district, where Steve Wright once ran a pub. Her semi-naked body was found dumped at the Ringland Hills beauty spot near Norwich several days later. She had been strangled. The police have told her mother that if there is a link with Steve Wright, she will be the first to know.
Mandy Duncan, 26. A mother of two, Miss Duncan vanished in July 1993, while working as a prostitute in Ipswich. Her body has never been found. A former boyfriend of Miss Duncan said that he definitely thinks there is a connection between her disappearance and Steve Wright.
Vicky Hall, 17. The schoolgirl was abducted and suffocated in September 1999 as she walked home to the village of Trimley St Mary, near the home of Steve Wright's father Conrad. Her naked body was found in a ditch.
Kellie Pratt, 29. She was a prostitute who disappeared in June 2000 while she was looking for clients outside a pub in Norwich's red light district. Her body has never been found.
Michelle Bettles, 22. She disappeared from Norwich's red light district in March 2002. Her body was found in woodland near Dereham in Norfolk three days later. She had been strangled. Miss Bettles was a regular at the Ferry Boat Inn, which was once run by Wright. Her father said that he would like to see the case re-opened and would like to know if there was a link there or not.
Another killer in the family
Mark Taylor is serving life in a US prison for a brutal gangland execution. He is Wright's half-brother.
Taylor and Wright have never met, but share the same mother, Patricia, who walked out of her marriage to Wright's father and moved to California with an Air Force Sergeant.
In his early twenties, he joined a gang called the Crips. Taylor, at 26, took part in a gangland shooting in San Diego on New Year's Day in 1995. His victim was fellow gang member Kenneth Pruden, 22.
At his court appearance in November 1997 Taylor was given a life sentence, and will not be eligible for parole for a minimum of 25 years. He is currently serving his sentence at Ironwood State Prison in Blythe, California.
There have been 20 identified convicted serial killers over the past fifty years and they have killed between three and four hundred people in Britain.
On average on any given year there will be two active serial killers in the UK who will kill on average, seven people.